“Twitter will be forming a content moderation council with diverse viewpoints” • Hacker News Board

Re: “Twitter will be forming a content moderation council with diverse viewpoints”

#551

Post by naet » Fri, Oct 28, 2022, 10:53 PM UTC

beachy wrote: post #522

I wish that Twitter - or some other social network - would experiment with the type of moderation seen on HN. Some would maybe call it heavy handed but I think of HN as a place that is mercifully relatively free of trolling, outrage culture, political bullshit and other toxic behaviors. In my experience there's no place like HN on the internet, and that's due I suspect to having a highly professional moderator (@dang…

I like HN and the moderators, but this isn't how HN mods imo. People aren't just politely reprimanded and falling into line...

People get accounts banned every day here. Moderation on HN is imo heavier than it is on twitter. Topics and discussion are heavily controlled and removed if they become at all sensitive or aggressive. You can't call people names or make crass offtopic jokes (like people on twitter do constantly).

Moderation is quick and personal, but that doesn't scale to a site with the volume of twitter.

Re: “Twitter will be forming a content moderation council with diverse viewpoints”

#552

Post by hackerlight » Fri, Oct 28, 2022, 10:54 PM UTC

khazhoux wrote: post #497

vdnkh wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention that the person who attacked Pelosi's husband with a hammer was also posting transphobic crap (along with a lot of other right-wing garbage). Hate online definitely has real world impact.

Is there any evidence he was specifically influenced and motivated by online rhetoric?

That's very common. There are a number of mass shooters in the US that targeted minorities who explicitly say in their manifesto or interrogation tape, that they were radicalized in online forums, and not offline.

Re: “Twitter will be forming a content moderation council with diverse viewpoints”

#553

Post by kQq9oHeAz6wLLS » Fri, Oct 28, 2022, 10:54 PM UTC

vkou wrote: post #298

retrac wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In 2020 in Ottawa, a man rammed through the gates of the Prime Minister's residence with a vehicle. He was in body armour and carrying multiple firearms. He claims he just wanted to meet with the PM, who thankfully wasn't home at the time. Is Canada on the verge of civil war? Multiple US presidents have been assassinated! Political violence is shocking but not actually so rare that we should latch on to any specific…

> Is Canada on the verge of civil war? So, the difference between the two countries is that this viewpoint in Canada is a fringe one, while in the United States, it enjoys popular support among mainstream politicians and media. Oh, they don't directly endorse violence, but they are very happy to call for someone to 'remove this turbulent priest'. That's the difference between fringe lunacy (present in every country,…

Also a reminder - a left-wing nut shot Scalise during a baseball game. Rand Paul was attacked at his home and had his ribs broken. There was an assassination plot against a conservative-leaning Supreme Court justice.

The right does not own the monopoly on violent nutjobs among their ranks. Sadly, they exist everywhere, left, right, and center.

Re: “Twitter will be forming a content moderation council with diverse viewpoints”

#554

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Oct 28, 2022, 10:56 PM UTC

DoctorNick wrote: post #350

partiallypro wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Babylon Bee being suspended was one of the dumber things the previous Twitter rules had done. It's a satire site, it's right leaning, nothing in the piece they said was hateful or even an unpopular view. Kanye's ban, he's just a mentally ill person. I don't think he meant "death con" he just didn't know that it's actually "def con." His remarks are still reprehensible. Twitter's whole moderation problem has been it i…

> Babylon Bee being suspended was one of the dumber things the previous Twitter rules had done. It's a satire site, it's right leaning, nothing in the piece they said was hateful or even an unpopular view. They didn’t even make a joke. They just called trans woman a man. It was hate speech, pure and simple. I am very afraid for the future of twitter now. Hate speech is going to run rampant on that platform now.

[deleted]

Re: “Twitter will be forming a content moderation council with diverse viewpoints”

#555

Post by freejazz » Fri, Oct 28, 2022, 10:57 PM UTC

solveit wrote: post #475

slg wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Giving an award to a Black person has slightly different connotations when it is done at a NAACP meeting compared to a Klan meeting.

But I absolutely don't want Twitter to decide which organisations are like the NAACP and which are like the Klan. This is regardless of who runs Twitter.

Well, good luck having a readable twitter then

Re: “Twitter will be forming a content moderation council with diverse viewpoints”

#556

Post by augustuspolius » Fri, Oct 28, 2022, 10:57 PM UTC

kranke155 wrote: post #218

It’s amazing to me that the HN hive mind has decided that somehow one of the most successful people on the planet, who’s built a successful electric car company, a private rocketry company and was part of the people who laid foundation for a “payment system for the internet” is somehow doomed to fail in his new venture. The excitement for this new move seems not just low here but overwhelmingly negative. “It can’t be…

It's not that we decided that Elon will fail. It's that there is no agreement on what success looks like. More freedom of speech for some means more abuse and bigotry for others. Both 4chan (no moderation) and HN (moderation) have succeeded by some metric and have a loyal audience. Twitter tried to satisfy too many parties for too long and now is facing a backlash from everyone. If Elon decides to prioritize one of the parties - the other groups will protest. And vice versa.

Re: “Twitter will be forming a content moderation council with diverse viewpoints”

#557

Post by hackerlight » Fri, Oct 28, 2022, 10:57 PM UTC

concinds wrote: post #525

dleslie wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, I bit. At 6:50 he explicitly decides to "call out" all Jewish people, and makes a claim that he's a victim of their behaviour. > "And what I'm doing, I'm calling out the Jewish community as a whole to say. People say to me, all, we grew up on Ye. Talk to your brother, ask him why is Ye upset? Everybody, all they [the Jewish Community] want to do is silence and shoot the messenger." That's plainly antisemitism.

I'm Jewish (feel free to believe me or not) and I disagree. I choose to ignore the overt bigotry and focus on addressing the underlying distrust. What he said represents quite common black nationalist views and were espoused by most Black Power activists in the 60s. Those views are still highly relevant in the black community today, due to things like this[0], promoted by popular thinkers like Prof. James Small. Yes,…

> I believe the proper response is to make the sports and music contracts transparent and re-do them so they don't screw over black talent

Why would you assume there's anything wrong with the contracts? He has the burden of proof and he hasn't shown it. Kanye believes he is being victimized by everyone. It's typical narcissist behavior. When someone says that everyone is an asshole, then they're probably the asshole.

Re: “Twitter will be forming a content moderation council with diverse viewpoints”

#558

Post by incomingpain » Fri, Oct 28, 2022, 10:57 PM UTC

ModernMech wrote: post #508

incomingpain wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It’s amazing to me that the HN hive mind has decided that somehow one of the most successful people on the planet, who’s built a successful electric car company, a private rocketry company and was part of the people who laid foundation for a “payment system for the internet” is somehow doomed to fail in his new venture. It has been interesting to read it today. Fundamentally elon has simply called for politically ne…

> I expect he's never going to allow calls to violence or incitement type things; who exactly thinks this is a bad decision? … Is giving the republicans their voice back and allowing them to speak really such a nightmare? Well let’s see… last time the former President was using his voice on Twitter, he was inciting and directing an insurrection against the government. So if Musk wants to reverse that ban, and Trump d…

>Well let’s see… last time the former President was using his voice on Twitter, he was inciting and directing an insurrection against the government. So if Musk wants to reverse that ban, and Trump decides to continue his rhetoric which already caused violence (which he will because he hasn’t stopped since 1/6), then yeah, that’s a nightmare.

I'm not american and just an outside observer. I believe the republicans/trump would not agree with your assessment. There is certainly a huge irreconcilable divide on how January 6th is viewed on either side.

Here's a left-wing viewpoint on the 'second american civil war': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_American_Civil_War

Which certainly agrees with you. Lets not forget Hillary Clinton has always held Trump stole the election and she even reiterated a few days ago the republicans are planning to do it again: https://twitter.com/IndivisibleTeam/status/15834963547345387...

Lets not forget https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_efforts_to_restrict...

425 bills in 49 states the republicans pretty much universally didn't believe a free election occurred; so they want to restrict the vote and prevent people from voting for the democrats.

More importantly the election in mere days will indicate to politicians exactly what the populous believes. When the democrats win midterms easily, it will be the people telling the republicans they aren't popular and democrats genuinely represent the will of the people.

Do we even need to consider what the people are saying in the unlikely event republicans win midterms?

Re: “Twitter will be forming a content moderation council with diverse viewpoints”

#559

Post by jeffbee » Fri, Oct 28, 2022, 10:58 PM UTC

concinds wrote: post #537

jeffbee wrote: post #509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Twitter added a Topics feature, where it promotes popular tweets. I have never seen this. It turns out to be buried under a "more" menu, so I maintain that this is a niche feature that you'd need to go out of your way to suffer. > You'll also see such "popular tweets" when you click on any tweet and scroll past the replies. No, I don't. I don't see anything like that. I just get to the bottom of the replies. When d…

> It turns out to be buried under a "more" menu, so I maintain that this is a niche feature that you'd need to go out of your way to suffer. I never turned it on or tapped on it, and don't follow any topics. It still intersperses "Comedy", "Crypto", and "Movies" tweets (labelled as such) into my main timeline. And I don't know why you don't see "popular tweets" (it's actually "More tweets", I misspoke). I've been see…

Oh! I know what the difference is. You are using the Twitter "Home" view and I am using the "Latest Tweets" view. I highly recommend switching, at least if you want to not see things from outside your followed accounts.

Re: “Twitter will be forming a content moderation council with diverse viewpoints”

#560

Post by sarlalian » Fri, Oct 28, 2022, 10:59 PM UTC

mytailorisrich wrote: post #463

FireBeyond wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is your opinion on Parler deleting anti-Trump messages? Or liberal viewpoints? Or r/conservative banning people who have posted on any one of a number of other subreddits, sometimes before they've even posted in r/conservative?

Whataboutism... Edit: Not only that but also transparently disingenuous. I don't know r/conservative (my comments are not about liberal vs conservative and I find odd that you and others immediately frame them that way) but a dedicated 'conservative' subreddit is obviously not the same as Twitter, which, again as become the de facto standard for most political and news communication.

It's a fair assumption. The free speech absolutist crowd very much tends to trend conservative.

I think most reasonable people would reject the assertion that twitter is the de facto standard. It isn't even in the top 10 for social media platforms by active monthly users, and usage and value of a platform varies way too much depending on age and gender. While twitter is possibly the de facto standard for gen-x + millennials and certain career groups such as politicians and journalists, it certainly won't be for 18-25 year olds. Facebook still has nearly 10x the monthly active users of twitter, in fact Twitter barely beats out Quora.

Ignoring the argument about it being the de facto standard, Twitter is a business. I expect that Elon would like to make money off of his $44B investment. In the battle between the free market and free speech, the free market will almost always win. If twitter goes the extreme free speech route, users who are often targeted by loud jerks, trolls and harassers will leave the platform. It will create bad press both in the form of people complaining about harassment as well as other businesses pulling ads where their customers or potential customers were harassed.